MFOHome About Commentary Discussions Funds The Best Resources Support Us!

Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Sign In Register
Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
  • Catastrophe Bond Funds
    Barron's mentioned in July 21, 2025 issue that CAT bond issuance for YTD (then) was already more than that for full 2024. Be careful with hot areas attracting lot of money.
    If there are no recent catastrophic events, then the CAT bond investors win.
    In the last few years, there have been some catastrophes related to fire and flooding.
    Barron's August 19, 2024 had this:
    INCOME FUNDS. Catastrophe bonds (CAT BONDS) are speculative insurance-linked bonds whose principals absorb insurers’ catastrophic losses (from hurricanes, earthquakes, etc), if any. If there are no, or not enough, claims for catastrophic events, then the cat bond holders win. Mentioned are OEFs ACBAX, SHRIX, EMPIX; several ETFs are coming; there are also some (nontraded) interval-funds.
    yogibearbull yogibearbull in Fund Discussions
  • QCDs from TIRAs
    It's that time again - to make QCDs from TIRAs early. It's from a community paper in which I publish weekly personal finance features.
    https://indoustribune.com/business/finance/qcds-from-tiras-retirement-charitable-contributions/
    QCDs from TIRAs
    There are several ways to make charitable contributions – direct from taxable accounts, from DAFs & as QCDs (Qualified Charitable Distributions) from Traditional IRAs (TIRAs).
    QCDs can be made only from TIRA, not from workplace 401k/403b (but those can be rolled-over/ direct-transferred to TIRA).
    QCDs can be made after 70.5 & that is 2.5 years before RMDs start now. The annual limit is inflation-adjusted ($108K in 2025; 2x for couples).
    After Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) start at 73, the QCDs count as RMDs up to the QCD limit. QCD can also be more than RMD, but the excess cannot be applied to next year’s RMD. QCDs reduce future RMDs & may avoid Medicare Part B IRMAA (Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount) triggers.
    QCDs don’t flow through 1040 income & don’t require itemized Schedule A for deduction. They can be made by both itemizers & non-itemizers. So, they are clearly better than charitable contributions from taxable accounts or from withdrawals taken from TIRAs.
    QCDs must go directly from the IRA sponsor to charities although IRA checkbook may be used (technically, money doesn’t flow through your hands). Make QCD well ahead of the yearend so that the donation is completed by the yearend (sent by sponsor, received by charity & acknowledged).
    QCDs cannot go into DAFs (Donor-Advised Funds).
    yogibearbull yogibearbull in Other Investing
  • Tesla vote on Thursday
    The chance that he meets "ambitious financial and operational goals" is probably about nil.
    Between the ketamine, weed and whatever else he imbibes, to control the depression and ADHD, I have doubts that he even lasts ten years.
    Or he goes the way of David Carradine.
    I've always thought of Howard Hughes.
    I can't say I'm surprised by the vote.
    I was pleased to note on the M* ownership tab that Fido was not among the top 20 "institutional" owners of Tesla. I try to avoid a lot of it, but it still shows up here and there.
    We shall see how it does now that the subsidies have ended.
    WABAC WABAC in Other Investing
  • Tesla vote on Thursday
    The chance that he meets "ambitious financial and operational goals" is probably about nil.
    Between the ketamine, weed and whatever else he imbibes, to control the depression and ADHD, I have doubts that he even lasts ten years.
    Or he goes the way of David Carradine.
    DrVenture in Other Investing
  • Tesla vote on Thursday
    Well, let's be fair on that- rockets are notorious for blowing up a fair amount until they finally get everything to work dependably.
    How many times did Werner von Braun’s Saturn V blow up prior to being approved for manned flight?
    Oh. I get the point @Old_Joe. I don’t like Musk’s politics but admire his innovative approaches to automotive, space, communications, tunnel construction and a lot more. He was a co-founder of Pay Pal - which I still use. I had high speed broad band internet two full years earlier than would have were it not for his Starlink project.
    And Von Braun, the architect of NASA’s Saturn V? Former German Nazi. Cut his teeth building the V2 rocket that wrought fear and destruction upon London.
    hank in Other Investing
  • Reinvestment Blues,,,, anyone else?
    Can’t view video: They want me to sign in to Google so we can confirm you’re not a bot so they can track me across the internet.
    Never much on holding cash. Presently, have spread the “cash” portion equally among SPAAX, JAAA and AGZD. In no way is that a recommendation. But there are some reasonable alternatives to cash for those with a time span of years rather than days.
    TBUX - risk very low
    NEAR - risk low
    AGZD - risk low
    JAAA - risk moderate
    CVSIX - risk moderate / high
    LPXAX - risk higher*
    IGHG - risk higher
    Disclosure - I own a small stock position in Cohen & Steers
    hank in Other Investing
  • This Day in Markets History
    From Markets A.M. newsletter by Spencer Jakab.
    On this day in 1999, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson found that Microsoft
    was a monopoly and the Justice Department initiated plans to break it up.
    The following trading day the stock fell as much as 8.5%.
    Less than two years later, a federal appeals court overturned much of Judge Jackson's ruling.
    Observant1 in Other Investing
  • Market timing is just gambling:
    I'm in the 120 minus your age in equities mindset so I have plenty of cash/bonds. I have had a plan for several years now but have deviated a little from it at times. I need to follow it and not deviate as much. Easier said than done when most days you poke around various websites reading financial information but I'm getting better and better at sticking to it.
    gman57 in Fund Discussions
  • Tesla vote on Thursday
    @a2z
    Great link. I knew that the situation was a bit dire, for TSLA. But, it may be worse than I thought.
    The notion that TSLA shareholders should be excited about robotaxis and Optimus robots is comical. Look at all the exaggeration, delays and outright lies that have emanated from Musk previously. The Cybertruck? An abject failure. I read recently that the only sales of that POS are being forced by Musk onto his own companies, skewing sales results. There are estimated to be 10,000 sitting unsold on lots.
    The cybertaxi , delayed by many years, is nothing like what was promised. Why does anyone trust this guy?
    DrVenture in Other Investing
  • Why buy the S&P 500?
    morningstar's star rating imo is a dumpster fire.
    VFIAX (vanguard sp500 admiral) is also a 5 star.
    VFFSX is effectively the same pool of money. 4 star.
    "The Morningstar Rating is based on Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return,
    using Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return % Rank for funds in a category.
    Morningstar calculates ratings for the three-, five-, and 10-year periods,
    and then the overall Morningstar Rating is based on a weighted average
    of the available time-period ratings."
    Ten year risk-adjusted returns are an input for the overall M* Rating.
    VFIAX has been in existence for over ten years while VFFSX does not have a 10-year history.
    This may be why VFIAX has 5 stars but VFFSX has only 4 stars.
    Observant1 in Fund Discussions
  • Market timing is just gambling:
    The only thing that I think makes sense intellectually is to
    1) Keep enough in cash or FI so you do not have to sell during a market crash to pay your current bills and anything else you will need in the X number of years you conservatively believe it will take to recover.
    2) many people's recommendation for the duration of the former in #1, I think is much too short. 3 years or five years etc pales in the light of the 11 years it took SP500 to to completely recover from 2000
    3) If you have sold in a panic during previous crashes, you have too much in equities
    4) Diversify and realize your starting valuations are a very good measure of the returns you can expect going forward.`Buying the SP500 today has a low chance of being a good investment in the next five years.
    5) Take the money you need to live on from the best preforming investment. ie if the SP500 is within 5% of it's all time high sell that.
    sma3 in Fund Discussions
  • The REAL Economy: 'Empty shelves, higher prices’- Americans tell cost of Trump’s tariffs
    Y...
    Separately, something has give with housing prices:
    "The average age for first-time homebuyers had hit an all-time record high of 40 years old, according to the National Association of Realtors."
    ...
    Haven't you heard? Condos are really cheap in areas where they were overbuilt!
    Problem solved!
    DrVenture in Other Investing
  • The REAL Economy: 'Empty shelves, higher prices’- Americans tell cost of Trump’s tariffs
    .... This is a very interesting read from 2015. Mass deportations will absolutely accelerate the problems with population decline.
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/stratfor/2015/02/17/population-decline-and-the-great-economic-reversal/

    What I am fixing to say doesn't change my current concern about the unwinnable situation we are creating for our young people. This is just a random off the cuff incoherent set of thoughts I had after reading the Forbes article and more about the far range future, if there is one.
    ...
    The author of the Forbes article seems to be wringing his hands over demographic worldwide shifts. I am more optimistic, or have been until recently. (I cannot predict outcomes if time moves backward along with decreased fertility rates. I suppose birth control would need to be outlawed completely to keep wages at poverty levels.) Assuming a more forward projected future, I just see positive change for the human experience. Who says the measure of life is a job? Maybe, with refusal to morph the cast system into something more fun and satisfying, meaningless exchanges of work for subsidence might be unchangeable. I want to believe we just have limited vision about the result of our more powerful, sometimes pessimistic and frightening, imagination.
    Coincidentally, this came out in the W.Post today:

    DrVenture said:
    Thanks for that link. It is important to note that the article I linked is 10 years old, so way behind the curve on the technology.
    My main takeaway is that demographics like this are extremely hard (impossible?) to reverse, minus immigration. People having less children, no children, and waiting longer to have children. In our economy, the consumer drives growth. Can that be replaced by AI or robotics? Maybe, it implies higher wages for everyone, due to labor shortfalls?
    Anyhow, you make many good points.
    DrVenture in Other Investing
  • Why buy the S&P 500?
    I asserted FXAIX was (simply) the best of the (plain-vanilla) SP500 indices.
    And I took that to be any fund that Lipper and MFO classify as a plain vanilla S&P 500 Index fund.
    https://lipperleaders.com/index.aspx (Lipper screener; search for S&P 500 funds)
    Let us take your 5y as the period of merit
    I used 5 years only because FDFIX doesn't have a ten year record. When I scanned Lipper's S&P 500 funds rated "5" for total return, I used 10 years unless it wasn't available. And it certainly wouldn't make sense to compare FDIFX's 5 year record with FXAIX's ten year record.
    A - Strategy
    Normally investing at least 80% of assets in common stocks included in the S&P 500 Index, which broadly represents the performance of common stocks publicly traded in the United States.
    So it has the freedom to do anything it wants with the remaining 20% of its portfolio and all it can do is track its index? Of course that's a ridiculous question. As is "one would expect D to outperform waaaaay better than A given its flex, no?"
    For the record, "Flex" is the name that Fidelity gave to its internal use zero ER funds. Nothing more.
    Lending securities to earn income for the fund. ... Also, income from shorting, correct?
    Now you've gone off the deep end. Lots of funds lend securities for income. That's not shorting, just the opposite. They lend their shares so someone else (the borrower) can short the securities. And pay the funds for the privilege. Vanguard has been doing that for decades. That's how, in some years, its fund managed to beat its benchmark. Or are you saying that VFINX / VFIAX is not a plain vanilla S&P index fund?
    The [Vanguard 500] fund has historically used securities lending to generate additional income to offset expenses.
    https://www.morningstar.com/funds/what-is-vanguard-500-indexs-achilles-heel
    You may not be aware that Fidelity (and Schwab and ...) provide individual investors the same opportunity to generate income. This page describes both how to set that up at Fidelity and more broadly the risks and benefits of security lending.
    https://www.fidelity.com/trading/fully-paid-lending
    msf in Fund Discussions
  • Why buy the S&P 500?
    Every so often one finds a fund at Vanguard that one can't get elsewhere,
    at least without ponying up a seven (or higher) figure amount.
    Vanguard offers the least expensive I shares for many Pimco mutual funds
    while the more costly I-3 shares are Fidelity's cheapest Pimco share class.
    Pimco I shares were previously available at Fidelity several years ago.
    Observant1 in Fund Discussions
  • Why buy the S&P 500?
    Ah, that chart ends at the end of September.
    The data table has two rows with the funds and columns with performances over various time periods through October 31. It shows FDFIX beating FXAIX by 3 basis points annualized (17.65% vs 17.62%) over five years, 3 basis points annualized (22.69% vs. 22.66%) over three years, and 2 basis points (21.45% vs. 21.43%) over the past year (Nov 2024 - Oct 2025).
    I would not have taken short-term trading into account.
    Agreed. Which is why I would discount the fact that YTD (under a year), through Oct 31, FXAIX has done better (same table).
    Best performance is to be inferred in this forum;
    Similarly, in this forum one expects to see higher min funds discussed periodically. Even $1M min funds (e.g. Schwab MMF Ultra shares) get a shoutout from time to time.
    We're not talking about sector funds or alternative investments here. There are more than a few participants here who likely could handle a core investment of $100K.
    For example, FD1000 wrote that his SIL, investing 50/50 in S&P 500 and QQQ can retire now. That sounds like someone who has at least $100K invested in the S&P 500. And masterd wrote "VOO and QQQ (or QQQM) are the only funds I would purchase".
    I don't know how to change the endpoint of the Fido comparison performance chart to get it end yesterday close of trading. Will investigate.
    I am having trouble in any case delving USPRX,
    Try here: https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/fdfix/chart
    Enter the tickers for FXAIX and USPRX one at a time in the "Compare" box. One can compare the three funds' total returns over the lifetime of FDFIX by setting the timeframe to max and setting the frequency to daily.
    Through Nov 3:
    FDFIX: 234.8558%, FXAIX: 234.6069%, USPRX: 236.8972%
    To compare FXAIX and USPRX over USPRX's lifetime, you can do the same thing, only using USPRX's M* chart:
    https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/usprx/chart
    Through Nov. 3:
    USPRX: 1685.5348%, FXAIX: 1659.6410%
    another 2-3 showed [USPRX] had not been around for 5y
    In early Q2 2023, the USAA Mutual Funds will be rebranded as Victory Funds. There will be no changes to the funds’ investment objectives, the investment teams managing the funds or their respective investment processes due to the change in the product branding, and there is no action required on the part of current investors. The Ticker symbols and Cusips are not changing.
    https://vcm.com/assets/fund-docs/Mutual Funds Planned Name Changes Feb 23 2023 Final.pdf
    USAA Asset Management was sold to Victory Capital in 2018-2019.
    https://ir.vcm.com/news/news-details/2019/Victory-Capital-Completes-Acquisition-of-USAA-Asset-Management-Company/default.aspx
    msf in Fund Discussions
  • Schwab: Shake Off Emotions and Control your Portfolio
    @FD1000: You came here, took advantage of the freedom and financial opportunities of OUR country, made your money, and now root for the destruction of the very country that gave you so much.
    PLEASE GO BACK WHEREVER YOU CAME FROM. JUST TAKE YOUR DAMNED MONEY AND GO.
    Every day, you continue to show your TDS and disrespect toward other posters. Honestly, you should be banned from this site.
    I came to this country legally because I believe it’s the best in the world. I have just as much right to be here as you do — after all, someone in your family was an immigrant at some point, too.
    If you dislike the current administration, you’re free to leave. Europe is waiting for you.
    IMO, the Biden administration was the worst in the last several decades, but during that time, I didn’t insult other posters, use foul language, or lose my composure — unlike you, who has done so daily for years, especially this year.
    Power changes hands between parties; that’s how democracy works. As Obama once said, “Elections have consequences.”
    And once again, your post is off-topic — just like many of your others — yet I’ve remained civil throughout. It’s clear you don’t know me at all, but that hasn’t stopped you from expressing unwarranted hostility.
    Lastly, if you mainly want to discuss politics, why not do so on a political site instead of an investment forum?
    FD1000 in Other Investing
  • Why buy the S&P 500?
    Last week, the S&P 500's multiple of sales was at its highest level ever —
    including the peak of the dot-com bubble.
    The Shiller P/E¹ recently breached 40 for only the second time.
    This portends meager S&P 500 returns in the coming years.
    https://marketsam.cmail20.com/t/d-e-gjyktld-duklntldl-r/
    ¹ The Shiller P/E isn't a useful timing tool and can remain elevated for a long time.
    Observant1 in Fund Discussions
  • The REAL Economy: 'Empty shelves, higher prices’- Americans tell cost of Trump’s tariffs
    You can wait until November to buy your discounted Halloween candy, but you still have to pony up. Prices are scary high.
    Get ready to buy just "2 dolls instead of 30" this XMAS.
    The average new car price in the US surpassed $50,000 for the first time in September 2025.
    Separately, something has give with housing prices:
    "The average age for first-time homebuyers had hit an all-time record high of 40 years old, according to the National Association of Realtors."
    It just ain't right.
    But rest assured, that nasty East Wing demolition was completely necessary. Completely. Meanwhile the Epstein fiasco was buried somewhere in the rubble.
    JD_co in Other Investing
  • Why buy the S&P 500?
    the best, FXAIX
    The best for you and undeniably one of the best. But simply the best, better than all the rest?
    ...
    ETFs offer greater accessibility at possibly lower trading cost (bid/ask spread vs. TF at many non-Fidelity brokerages). Institutional investors and traders may have difficulty using FXAIX with its restriction of two round trips within 90 days (trading rights are suspended if this is exceeded).
    In terms of raw performance, FXAIX is arguably not even the best. Fidelity's Flex fund FDFIX, used by Fidelity's robo advisor, has a better 5 year return (it hasn't been around for 10 years yet). On the DIY front, USPRX ($100K min) has a better 10 year return. Though technically not an S&P 500 fund, Lipper includes it in its S&P500 index category.
    Different strokes for different folks. "Best" here can be mathematically quantified by constructing ...
    Best performance is to be inferred in this forum; apologies for those misled.
    You appear to have misread your own links and chart re FDFIX, which lags FXAIX a couple bucks over 5y, so far as I can see using Chrome for the Fido research chart comparison page. Ah, that chart ends at the end of September. So I assume FDFIX somehow pulled ahead the last 5 weeks, correct? I don't know how to change the endpoint of the Fido comparison performance chart to get it to stop yesterday close of trading. Will investigate.
    And of course FXAIX outperforms those two major ETFs nontrivially, by a few hundred, over that period.
    Even if those two ETFs had done better, I would not have taken short-term trading into account. And for a stickler I should have written best-performing, yes. Finally, I would of course not have included a $100k min fund, but I am having trouble in any case delving USPRX, as over a half-dozen sites show it grew only into the ~$18,000s over the last 5y, and another 2-3 showed it had not been around for 5y.
    davidrmoran davidrmoran in Fund Discussions